But you know what’s crazy is, it felt special to buy that single didn’t it? To spend that little 99cents on the new TI single. It felt like a real memorable moment.

And THATS what’s missing!

Yup that’s what I’m saying

Vinyls have always been expensive/collector's item type of package.

Those are very expensive to make (hence why people said the french montana orders was a scam from the jump cause of how cheap they were)

When I saw that guy yelling at me that asking $5 is robbery I was laughing my ass off lol

they had them for $20 even as far back as 2017, $30 was kind of crazy but alright. 36-40 now looks f***ing crazy, there are rare out of print records I can get for that much. and I do understand they made a pivot with it being less of a listening format and more of a fan item, its still a lousy deal imo

Streaming is skewed to benefit labels the most. Not even signed artists make that much money, so you can imagine how indie acts will fare in such a climate. How's Bandcamp for anyone that's used the platform? Is it more beneficial for the artist in terms of how much they make from their work

Yep, I understand this vision too, they like to sign acts desperate enough to take that risk. Sign an advance for $50K, but you need to make the label $500K in less then 6 months, and oh yea, that 50K is your wardrobe budget, video budget and everything else until you make us our profit.

I wonder how many people just didn't read nor understand the fine print? Either way, being a rap artist is nowhere near the dream it use to be.

F*** Adele while we're in here

Had the whole vinyl industry messed up, folks are still being held up off that 30 album jamming up all the vinyl plants

I made more from Bandcamp in a year and a half than I did from distrokid in 3-4 years

But it's disingenuous to talk about how the math is really not mathing?

they set up for niggas to lose. That's why rappers are at all these festivals cause it's the only way to get a consistent crowd.

f*** adele and f*** taylor and her six different covers for one mid album, but moreso for the fact they dont even wanna look into creating new vinyl production facilities for their s*** and just end up clogging up factories that take up orders from everyone, from Adele to Injury Reserve. guess who gets the better treatment over there too

Wild. I wonder if Bandcamp was way more popular on a mainstream level, would these labels start acting right and stop dishing out slave deals

once again capitalism killing the industry.

That's why whenever I'm talking about musicians and their woes I'm rarely mentioning or even thinking about the niggas at the top of the food chain.

Gotta pray bandcamp stays healthy , the fact they've completely changed ownership twice in a couple years is worrying

$50k budget for everything is insane, and a sad reality

That is concerning

When you’re desperate and these people have built up a relationship with you to the point you trust them, you don’t ever feel they would wrong you. This happens everywhere, especially with fake prophet religious leaders preying on the meek and down trodden.

They really do, that's why there's 0 room for artistic growth in rap now, cause it's really just a hustle now. It feels like rap artist are the insurance salesmen of music now, but it wasn't like that back in the day, motherfuckers who have 0 business in this game just ruined the whole thing, business wise.

capitalism lowkey cant kill something that was bred under it, it mostly just twists something in various different ways

way I see it its a new era of f***ing up 'earnest' buyers and favoring those looking to sit comfortably on multiple chairs at once while not assuming ownership of their products, so a lot of these contradictions I approach from that perspective

The issue is Bandcamp would never be that popular because it's still not where MAJORITY of the public/market will listen to your music. And a lot of these major artists are with labels that are aligned with these big streaming platforms so that aint even an option for them even if they wanted to.

It also "shuts you out" of the status quo. There are some knxwledge songs for example I can't post on an IG story because of the fact it's only on bandcamp. That's one example of the "lack of exposure" that comes with exclusive bandcamp drops.

That's why (imo) the smart thing to do is to release on both bandcamp and the "big 3" so that you can maximize your profits from both different sides of the streaming. And add gifts and bonuses to the bandcamp purchases (if they buy) in order to make the fans feel like they earned it.

because everybody is in it to just move on to the next thing.

We commercialized rap, and now rap is a commercial.

I need to see the full clip
But hearing Maseo & Posdnuos (on Drink Champs) talk about how labels would give their acts lawyers who were in cahoots with them to trick them into signing bad deals made me sad

Wouldn't trust anyone in the recording industry. Your an investment in these folks eyes, these agents and execs have targets they need to hit, and if you don't hit them, well its f*** you

Yep, and its a terrible commercial at that. The essence of the culture is dead, too many suits controlling this s***, making sure the genre is stupid as possible. We went from every top rap label having a black boss/figurehead in the 90s, to every artist being the same hood archetype on every white label.

It's f***ed up

And that level of thinking that you are at is why they won’t sign you. They are looking for people who are green as f*** in that jargon who just see “wow, I’m about to be signed to a label. Million dollar check, my family is going to be good. I finally made it.” I mean just look at this s***

Glorilla Signing youtube.com/watch?v=SXO3XYPb4tY?si=trNxMKE7GKlWbE43

Now idk anything about Yo Gotti or his business practices but this is exactly how they trick these artists into signing these deals. “There’s no way my brother Gotti, who got me all this money, jewelry, cars, private plane, would ever f*** me over” and then boom 5 years from now we’re hearing about how they finally learned that ”actually Gotti made $250M off the $1M he gave to you 😗 and he don’t owe you back anything based on your contract”